To add Kallaugher, Kevin to your My Comics Page

Upgrade to a GoComics Pro account (only $19.99/yr) and have all of your
favorite comics emailed to you daily! You'll also get unlimited archive
access to decades of comics and an ad-free website and mobile app
experience.

“Besides, making a person live in prison is a far worse punishment than a quick death.”

In some cases, yes, It depends on the individual.

If I were Emperor, I would give everyone convicted of a capital crime the choice of Life Without Possibility of Parole (“LWOPP”) or swift execution. The conviction itself could be appealed (as can any conviction), but not the sentence. It is BECAUSE the death penalty is “special” (if you later find out the accused was actually innocent, posthumous exoneration is of little use) that the appeals process is lengthy and expensive and exhausting (for all concerned) and AUTOMATIC.

Of course, we have Ms. Ima as an example of one who would demand execution if the prisoner chose LWOPP, and would demand LWOPP if the prisoner chose execution…

“Really? Then why do they all fight for life imprisonment over death?”

“Socrates said that since we have no idea what death IS, we have no logical reason to fear it. It might be…very nice.”“I don’t think I’D like it. Just the thought of being locked in a box forever… Of course, I always imagine it as being ALIVE and locked in a box, but I wouldn’t be. I’d be dead, and I suppose that makes all the difference. Would you rather be alive and locked in a box, or dead and locked in a box? If you were alive and locked in a box, you could still say ‘Well, at least I’m not dead…’”Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

R: “Do you suppose death is like a boat?”G: “No. Death is the ultimate negation. Death ’isn’t.’ ‘Not-being.’ You can’t ‘not-be’ on a boat.”R: “I’ve frequently not been on boats.”G: “No, what you’ve been…is ‘not-on-boats.’”

It’s too bad that Life doesn’t always mean that. Just wait a decade or two, hope that evidence gets lost or destroyed, have some celebs back you because you’re “reformed” and you’re back out in society to do it again. And lifers can cost just as much as death row inmates because they can appeal multiple times also.

Life with parole is the nastiest sentence. death is too quick and easy for the criminal. let me explain. you keep them in prision until they are totally institutionalized and dependant, old and feeble. Once they can’t care for themselves, you parole them, announce the time/place of release and the crime the criminial is being released for.

then just step back and let the old, feeble, institutionalized criminal try to fend (or defend) for himself.

“Just wait a decade or two, hope that evidence gets lost or destroyed, have some celebs back you because you’re “reformed” and you’re back out in society to do it again. And lifers can cost just as much as death row inmates because they can appeal multiple times also.”

That’s why LWOPP is a viable alternative. Short of overturning the conviction itself, there’s no way the guy is getting out. And by removing the death sentence, the appeals process is much less zealously (and exhaustively, and expensively) applied.

About Kevin Kallaugher

Kevin Kallaugher's work for The Sun and The Economist has appeared in more than 100 publications worldwide, including Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Pravda, Krokodil, Daily Yomiuri, The Australian, New York Times, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, and The Washington Post. His cartoons are distributed worldwide by Cartoonarts International and the New York Times Syndicate.